2016 GLAAD Media Awards Winners; Lilly Wachowski, ‘Bessie’ & More

Lilly Wachowski made her first public appearance since coming out as transgender at tonight’s 27th annual GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles. The annual ceremony honoring LGBT representations in news, television, music, comics, and film gave the Outstanding Drama Series award to Wachowski’s Netflix series Sense8.

She took the stage opening her acceptance speech with “Ta-da!,” receiving thunderous applause. She attributed many events that led to her coming out including the “fabulous people at GLAAD,” and, sarcastically, “the extremely sensitive and courteous people at The Daily Mail, thanks guys.”

“My sister Julie likes to joke, ‘You can’t write this s**t,’ but interconnectivity and serendipity and our relationship to each other past, present and future to those who have come before to those who will follow, Sense 8 was born from this primordial human stuff,” Wachowski said. “Where do we find the courage to break free of the boxes of our lives?…. The ideas of identity and transformation are critical components of our work, the bedrock that all ideas rest upon is love.”

She continued, “Love is a crucial thing for transgender people, it’s a tether. While creativity can soar beyond our seemingly immutable biological gender designations, when faced with a rather simple proposition of whether or not we are lovable, our imagination falters.”

GLAAD also honored Demi Lovato, who took home the Vanguard Award, and Ruby Rose, who won the Stephen F. Kolzak award for members of the media or entertainment who fight homophobia. Meanwhile, I Am Cait shared a win for reality TV with TLC’s I Am Jazz, while on the scripted television front, Amazon’s Transparent and HBO’s Bessie took home awards.

The GLAAD Media Awards air on Logo Monday at 10 pm.

Here is the complete winner’s list for the 27th annual GLAAD Media Awards.